How to Teach?

From the context of our exploration of games, we came to education - and the key challenge of engagement.  We looked back to the 12 Brain/Mind Learning Principles, to recognize the importance of emotion to the learning process.  We discussed as a class the impacts of positive and negative reinforcement on motivation and learning, and investigated the fight or flight response to stress.

Students took a look at the curriculum from the Ministry of Education website, and learned how to read curriculum documents.  They also learned about the policies followed by teachers to ensure they are correctly following and evaluating the curriculum.  They applied their skills to locating curriculum expectations that could be connected to the game they investigated for homework on the weekend.

We then explored Multiple Intelligences Theory by taking a quiz on the Birmingham Grid for Learning website.  Students shared their codes, and their highest and lowest rated intelligence, and speculated on how different teaching styles could fit their preferred learning style.

To bring the activity full-circle, students were assigned to create a curriculum-based lesson using a custom lesson plan template.  The lesson could cover any subject area or grade, but had to include the effective use of a game.  The areas of the template are explained as follows:

1. Learning Goals - these are specifically tailored to the outcomes measured at the end of the lesson - what will students specifically be able to do after the lesson is complete?
2. Curriculum Expectations - these are taken directly from the ministry documents and are the basis for the lesson.
3. Minds On / Hook - the start of the lesson should get students engaged and in the correct mindset (increasing readiness to learn).
4. Action - what do the students do in order to achieve the learning goals?
5. Consolidation - how do we assess the learning and ensure that students are prepared to apply the learning to new and broader contexts?

It was pointed out that lessons do not need to take place in a single class period, but could potentially stretch over several days.  Students were asked to pace their lesson appropriately.

Teaching with Technology

We began our exploration into the integration of technology into education with Did You Know 3.0?, a video that explores the ways in which the world is changing:



From there we listened to Dr. Willard Daggett, speaking to the need for adaptation in the face of technological innovation:



We then listened to an excerpt from a keynote address by Marc Prensky, the man who coined the term "Digital Natives" to describe the modern internet enabled generation.  He alludes to a speech that I attended at York University in 2006, where TDSB students (some of them from Thomson), participated in a technology workshop that paralleled the workshops teachers were attending.  The end results of their work impressed the teachers, and helped Prensky make his point about the need to integrate technology into learning to reach kids where their experiences are.


We also explored Ben Stone's address to a business crowd, speaking to the ways that ideas like Prensky's "Digital Natives" are reshaping not just K-12 education, but corporate training as well.  He suggests that he's not quite ready to get fully on-board with Prensky's message of game-based learning.


This exploration prompted the second blog post: Innovation in Education: A Case Study

We moved further into this line of inquiry with Gabe Zichermann's TED talk on Gamification.  Zichermann gives several good examples of ways that game concepts can be applied to real-life situations to produce the right motivations in people.  (Like the speed ticket lottery idea)


We looked at how this concept of Gamification could be applied to teaching in schools.  Students had homework over the weekend to play a game and consider how it could be used in an educational context, for educational goals.

Blog Posts

Blog posts (like journals) will form a large part of the "academic" portion of the course.  Set up a blog on a service like Blogger, Wordpress, Blogspot, or another blog service of your choice.  Your blog assignments can be found in the Blog List document shared with you here and through twitter.

In order to be graded, I must be able to read your blog post.  Share your blog link with me and ensure that I can comment on your post (if there's an option to turn this off, don't - I use the comments feature to give you feedback on your post).

Please share your blog address through this form:

Week One Summary

We made it!  

Recapping what we accomplished this week:

• We set up Twitter accounts and followed @mr_wires
• Learned about retweets, favorites, following, hashtags (#topic), and mentions (@username)
• Watched the comedy of Father Guido Sarducci:

• Is his comedy based in a true phenomenon?  Do we really forget the things we learn so easily?
• What does this tell us about memorization as an educational technique?
• What things do we need to remember?
• What things do we not need to remember?
• We also watched Sir Ken Robinson's talk on Changing Education Paradigms (beautifully animated by RSA Animate)

• What is Sir Ken Robinson's talk about, in a nutshell?
• What are some examples of convergence/conformity/standardization in your school?  
• What benefit does this paradigm offer?
• What are some negatives/weaknesses of this paradigm?
• What are some examples of divergence/creativity in your school?
• What benefit does this paradigm offer?
• What are some negatives/weaknesses of this paradigm?
• What would a school modeled on the new paradigm suggested in this talk be like?  
• Would you like to be a student in that school?
• We also took a look at Dr. Renata Nummela Caine's article on the 12 Brain Mind Learning Principles 
• We reflected as we read by tweeting our responses to #dmtwires
• ... we were told there would be an assignment based on this article and our tweets on Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone!